Our private bus ride from Chengdu to Emei Shan began with a two-hour drive to Leshan, a town best known for its famous giant Buddha carved straight into the cliffside overlooking the junction of three rivers.
At 71 meters tall, it holds the title of the largest stone Buddha in the world. It took over 100 years to complete, construction of it began in 722 AD under the leadership of a Chinese Buddhist monk named Hai Tong. He believed the Buddha’s presence would calm the treacherous waters that kept wrecking local shipping vessels. He was beyond dedicated to the project, when funding for the project was threatened, he allegedly gouged out his own eyes to prove his piety and sincerity.
Bizarrely enough, his plan actually worked. The sheer volume of stone rubble dumped into the river during construction altered the currents and genuinely made the water safer for boats, though the Buddha’s watchful eye surely helped too.
You can hike up to the carving but to get the best view of the entire statue, you have to view it from the water, so we hopped aboard a bit of a rusty old junker of a ferry boat. Seeing it from the river was incredible, and really let you appreciate the scale and what a giant undertaking it must have been. It was also a nice feeling to tick another UNESCO World Heritage site off our list.
After taking in the view, we piled back onto the bus to head toward our base for the next few days, Emei Shan. A 3,100-meter-tall mountain, the highest of the four sacred Buddhist mountains in China and supposedly the birthplace of martial arts. We navigated some extraordinarily twisty roads before finally arriving at a green and misty little town at its base. It was so peaceful and quiet, well, quiet for China anyway.
We fueled up with another tasty meal that bridged the gap between a late lunch and early dinner. Feasting on an array of dishes, notable dishes included a tasty fish and some DIY pork buns. Afterward, Michael took us on a casual stroll around the village to check out a few local temples and Buddhist carvings. Shortly after, we turned in for an early night, knowing we had a serious amount of trekking waiting for us the next morning.
Will tell you all about it soon, love Alice x